Split Images (1981) (19 page)

"Think of an individual," Robbie said, "you know the world would be a much better place without."

Jesus Christ, Bryan thought. "Like who?"

"Come on, you know the type I mean. An international pure-bred asshole of the first order."

"I don't know any," Bryan said.

"There are some fairly obvious ones."

"Well, I don't know how international he is,"

Bryan said, "but how about Howard Cosell?"

"Come on, I mean a real one."

"Two for one," Bryan said, warming up to it, "Cosell and George Steinbrenner. Or, I know a couple Recorders Court judges--but I think I'd rather catch 'em crossing a street and run over 'em with a car. Does it matter how you do it?"

"I'm serious," Robbie said. "Consider someone like--have you ever heard of Carlos?""Carlos," Bryan said. The name was familiar.

"Number one terrorist in the world today. Hijacks planes, kidnaps, murders--"

"You had a buyer from Mexico named Carlos,"

Bryan said, holding Robbie's gaze. "Carlos Cabrera."

It stopped Robbie. His smile was tentative, with a hint of suspicion. "How'd you remember that name?"

"I spoke to him on the phone," Bryan said.

"Asked him if he remembered who picked him up that Saturday. He said you did." Staring at Robbie, not letting him look away. "I asked him where he stayed. He said the Detroit Plaza."

Robbie moved around behind the bar again, giving himself something to do. "If Mr. Cabrera says I picked him up . . . Come to think of it I guess I did.

But not at the hotel. No, he was waiting at the main entrance of the RenCen with his assistant. Right out in front." Now remembering details. "Did he tell you that?"

"He might've. But it's all the same general area, isn't it?"

"We're talking about an entirely different Carlos," Robbie said, breaking free and beginning to run now. "A Venezuelan educated in Moscow, trained in PLO fedayeen camps. Carlos has worked with both the Red Brigade and the Baader-Meinhof gang. He's the ultimate professional terrorist- kidnapped those OPEC guys in Vienna, he's murdered who knows how many people. His operating principle is from an old Chinese saying, 'Kill one, frighten ten thousand.' "

Bryan said, "You'd rather do Carlos than Howard Cosell, huh?"

"I'm serious, goddamn it!" Robbie took a drink to settle down and managed a weak grin. Serious but still boyish. "Sorry about that. Sometimes I get a little carried away."

Bryan, with all the time in the world, said, "You want to go out and shoot Carlos, is that what you're telling me?"

"Look at it this way," Robbie said. "All over the world people are shooting each other. Iranians and Iraqis, Russians and Afghans, Christians and Moslems in Lebanon. Look at Angola, Uganda, Cambodia, Chad--"

"Chad . . ." Bryan said. He had not thought too much about Chad lately.

"Ethiopia, Guatemala, El Salvador . . . People are shooting each other and most of the time they don't even know what side they're on. We look at those places, it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. But there are other areas where we know goddamn well who the bad guys are."

"Wait a minute," Bryan said. There was something he wanted to do. He got off the stool, went over to the open cabinet and looked in. The display of handguns was impressive, interesting: most of them high-caliber, high-velocity models that would be selected with serious intent.

The twenty-two target pistol Robbie had fired in his office wasn't on display. He tried the door below the open cabinet but it wouldn't budge.

"I showed Walter my collection," Robbie said.

"Walter goes, 'Christ, you could invade Cuba.' "

Bryan came back to the bar. "I don't know about Cuba, but it might get you through downtown Miami."

Robbie raised his eyebrows. "Speaking of which. You know the Cuban boat people, the ones that came from Mariel? Just in the past year something like eighty-five of them have been shot and killed."

Bryan settled into the stool. It was comfortable and things were moving right along. He didn't have to urge Robbie or lead him now.

"There's an outlet in Miami sells a half-million dollars worth of handguns a month, and that's only one place. We're into guns, man. Everybody is, the good guys now as well as the bad guys. And you know what it comes down to, the bottom line?

Who shoots first."

Now he was trying to sound hip. He didn't know who he was. Or as Angela said, there was an interesting other Robbie inside the cute Robbie. The one in there was dying to pull the trigger and the pres-ent world climate was inspiring him, bringing him out on stage.

"You can wait for an intruder. Somebody breaks into your house, which happened right here. Or, if you have the wherewithal, the purpose, the ability, why not go out after the same sort of game? Only bigger?"

"Like Carlos," Bryan said.

"Like any number of individuals on the other side," Robbie said. "Carlos is an example. Maybe someday, down the road. A more realistic one might be . . . say, a big-time drug dealer that none of the government agencies can touch. A guy who's fucking up lives, kills people who get in his way and lives like a king."

Bryan said, "Well, you're looking for action you could join the Marines."

"Listen, a hundred and twenty years ago," Robbie said, "during the Civil War, gentlemen of means raised their own regiments. 'Bring your horse, a shotgun and a pistol and ride with Nathan Bedford Forrest.' You put a sign on a tree in the front lawn.

Now you don't fight with armies; the sides aren't clearly enough defined. But, you don't have to raise a regiment to take out some of the bad guys."

He was serious. Listening to him was not exactly embarrassing, but close to it. The man didn't hear himself as he was. He was picturing himself in arole. With a sword. Born a hundred years too late.

Maybe that was it.

Bryan said, "I notice you read some pretty exciting stuff. We can get all kinds of secret thrills from books, can't we? Especially in a nice comfortable study. Quiet, air-conditioned . . ."

"The star German terrorist Ulrike Meinhof,"

Robbie said, "refused to hide out in an apartment that didn't have central heating, or the usual comforts of home. He complained about the primitive conditions in PLO training camps, raised quite a stink about Al Halil, in Libya. Which incidentally got Qaddafi very pissed off."

"I guess what you're saying," Bryan said, "you don't have to be poor to want to kill somebody."

"You don't have to be a cop, either."

Bryan waited, letting the silence lengthen.

"What's the matter, you bored?"

"Usually."

"Golf doesn't do it, uh?"

"There's very little competition."

"Well, now you're into a game I know something about," Bryan said.

"I'm aware of that." Robbie sipped his drink.

"Except you haven't told me if you've ever killed anyone."

"Does it matter?"

"I don't believe you have," Robbie said, "and Ithink that's odd. I mean if I've killed and you haven't, who's the authority?"

"I think it might depend," Bryan said, "on who you've got in mind."

The curly haired smiler who owned a half-dozen cars, a couple of million-dollar mansions, property in seven states and was sometimes mistaken for a movie star looked at the thirty-grand-a-year homicide cop with the solemn mustache.

He said, "It's funny. You go to a club for a round of golf, you're asked what you shoot. But this kind of game you're asked who you shoot, or would like to. It's considerably more exciting, isn't it?"

"Only if you win," Bryan said. "You lose, you don't get off buying a round of drinks."

HE GROANED AS he worked sore feet into his loafers, sat back and rested, then groaned again as he got up out of the Holiday Inn chair.

Angela said, "Sometimes you sound old."

She stood at the mirror over the bank of dressers, looking at his reflection across the room, the glass door to the balcony behind him in flat light.

He said, "I told you, I like to sound old."

"Not creaky old."

"I played eighteen holes on a ball buster. That'll do it to you."

Angela was adjusting the neckline of her dress, pulling it out and looking down inside. "But did he tell you who he wants to shoot?"

"He talks around it." Bryan moved to the closet, came out with his blue polka-dot tie. "If you could get rid of anybody you feel doesn't deserve to live- or the world would be a better place without--who would it be? I think some girl told him one time he's 'real deep' and he believes it.""You know who might be a good one," Angela said. "Robbie."

"I thought of that," Bryan said, "after." He came over to the mirror to tie his tie, standing obliquely behind her. Angela's eyes raised to his reflection, his face already deeply tanned.

"Who did you suggest?"

"I gave him Howard Cosell. I didn't mean it though. I like Howard, he's all right."

"You like everybody."

"No, but when I think about it, I don't dislike as many people as I thought. I decided I like John McEnroe, for example. I'd take him for backup any time."

"How about Walter?"

"Walter's Walter. I think Daniels played the game with him and signed him up. Walter, I can see him, makes out a list of prospects and licks his thumb going through the pages. But I guess I didn't play it right. It was funny, I had the feeling, it was like I was waiting to get a bribe offer. If I said the right thing, showed some interest, he'd have offered me . . . I don't know. Shows me the exclusive club, his home--it was like, all this can be yours if you play along."

"The temptation of Bryan Hurd."

"Except he didn't offer me anything; so what was he doing? He tells me about an international terrorist as a likely target, a guy named Carlos. That rang a bell, so I told him I'd called that Mexican buyer, Carlos Cabrera."

"Did you?"

"No, I took a shot. I told him the Mexican said Mr. Daniels himself had picked him up. At the Plaza. And Robbie said, that's right, I guess I did.

No argument. So he was there Saturday morning."

They thought about it separately, staring at their reflections, tieing a tie, pinning the front of a dress, wondering about a man who talked about killing people. She said, "Are you always this detached?"

And thought of him in the squad room. "No, you're not. But you don't seem interested."

"I'm used to working from some kind of possible motive, and I don't see it," Bryan said. "Why would he kill Curtis Moore?"

Angela moved to the chair by the balcony and sat down, erect, knees together, as though practicing. She said, "You discussed it with him in the abstract, didn't you? When he talks about killing people, does he show any kind of emotion? Does he get excited?"

"He rationalizes. But when you begin with bullshit the conclusion you reach is still bullshit."

They were dressing to meet Robbie at the Everglades Club for cocktails and dinner. Angela had brought one dress, the beige wraparound cotton knit she wore. She wondered if it was dressy enough for the Everglades and had asked Bryanseveral times if he thought the neckline was all right. He'd said, "If you hold rich people somewhere below you, how're they gonna see down your dress?" She'd said she was asking what he thought, not anyone else, and made him feel like a smart-ass.

She would sit stiffly erect now, then bend forward from the waist, testing her moves as Bryan got into his dark blue Sunday suit.

"Did Curtis Moore come up at all?"

"No, but that's an idea," Bryan said. "Offer Curtis as a guy you'd like to shoot if someone hadn't already. See if he lights up."

"Would we be meeting him tonight if you weren't a cop?"

That was a good question. Or, would they have been invited? He sidestepped it and said, "I thought you want to see the Everglades Club."

"I do," Angela said. "How about when I bend over?"

"Nice . . . You don't have a bra on."

"Sure I do. See? But there's not much to it."

He said, "We've got a little time, haven't we?"

She said, "Now wait a minute. You know how long it took to get this pinned?"

He said, "We sound like we're married."

They looked at each other and then looked away. But there it was.

Walter got back to the house at ten minutes to seven, looked around and found Daniels out on the patio, all dressed up in a tan suit and red-striped tie, like he was going out. Except he was reading a book.

Walter started his report: "You know how many Rolls--" But Daniels raised his hand, not looking up from the book. Walter had to wait for Mr. Cool to finish the page and bend the corner over.

"Now then."

"You said the guy had a Rolls. You know how many fucking Rolls are parked out at Seminole?"

"I told you it was a dark blue sedan."